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Your next favorite book
is waiting.
by Daniel Kraus
Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man's Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.
What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.
Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.
Daniel Kraus's novel Angel Down takes place late in World War I, just weeks away from the November 11, 1918 Armistice. Private Cyril Bagger, self-professed gambler, con man, and card cheat, has remained safe behind the front lines by volunteering to dig latrines and mass graves. He considers himself a coward, but he's OK with that; his only goal is to survive the war.
After a particularly brutal German artillery assault, someone can be heard shrieking in No Man's Land, and this screeching goes on and on, hour after hour, getting on everyone's nerves. Bagger is ordered, along with four other particularly expendable soldiers, to "take care of" the presumably wounded man. When Bagger finally makes it across the dangerous, cratered battlefield, he finds not an injured person, but an angel entangled in barbed wire. One of the men claims she's the "Angel of Mons" (see Beyond the Book) and as they attempt to take her to headquarters, Bagger is compelled to risk his life to protect her—from enemy fire as well as from his own squadron.
Told in a third-person voice entirely from Bagger's point of view, the novel unspools in one long stream-of-consciousness sentence. The author wisely chooses to break the narrative into shorter chunks separated by white space to make it easier to read; each paragraph, all of which start with "and" and end with a comma, might elsewhere comprise three or four sentences:
"and over the kid's head he glimpses the last marchers vanishing centipedially around a trench corner, the gunmetal sky glowing off the canteens clipped to every pack so it looks like there's a big, silver hole punched through each soldier, the air thick with the molar grind of men overburdened with matériel, the drowsy clops of horse-pulled supply wagons, the asthmatic hack of covered trucks dragging fifty-ton howitzers over cratered rubble,"
The technique risks growing old after a chapter or two, but Kraus's prose is so glorious and his descriptions so alive that the entire book is a marvel. Phrases such as "[his] light brown eyes have gone arachnid with the points of several lanterns" and "Bagger blinks away the ash that snowfalls heavier with each northward step" dot every page, painting a vibrant picture of all the protagonist sees and experiences. All one's senses are engaged ("Bagger has developed a sommelier palate for the tart fizz of brachial blood, the fudgy sorghum of femoral, the meaty sludge of heart wounds…and the warm salt lick of arterial blood he now licks from his lips").
An incredible amount of character development is also woven throughout. Bagger tries to portray himself as a callous, cynical swindler, but we discover he's riddled with lifelong guilt, and buried deep within is a truly good person. His journey toward acceptance of himself, with all his imperfections, helps propel the plot forward.
The novel also offers commentary on the pointlessness of war. The author mentions to Publishers Weekly that Angel Down is, in part, about "the absurdist futility of millions of men dying over a few feet of ruined land" and also remarks, "WWI was the dawn of truly mechanized slaughter, and once begun, that's a self-perpetuating machine that you can't turn off." Although his message risks becoming heavy-handed at a couple of points, overall the author brilliantly illustrates these points throughout the fictional narrative.
Readers might be initially daunted by the novel's structure, particularly if one is unprepared. Although I'm generally open-minded about different writing techniques, I worried Kraus's experimental approach might seem unnecessary and contrived. I'm happy to say that my initial impression was wrong. It didn't take me long to sink into the text's cadence and fully immerse myself in the narrative, and after a few chapters I couldn't imagine any other format being as effective.
The other roadblock for some may be the descriptions of all-pervading gore. Kraus doesn't spare his audience from the horrors of the WWI battlefront. Body parts and viscera are everywhere, people die in stomach-turning ways, and the soldiers are constantly encrusted in blood and muck. The author's depictions are graphic, potentially making the book a challenge for sensitive readers.
I have a penchant for well-written fiction that doesn't fit the typical narrative mold, and Angel Down is right up my alley. The author's brilliant prose, vivid descriptions, interesting characters, and underlying message make this one of my favorites of the year. I imagine that it will be one of those "love it or hate it" types of books, as its single-sentence format may be a high hurdle to overcome for some. If you're looking for a unique book with a ton of depth, however, you can't go wrong with this one—it's absolutely unforgettable.
Book reviewed by Kim Kovacs
Daniel Kraus's novel Angel Down is set on a WWI battlefield in France. After a particularly brutal shelling, Private Cyril Bagger is sent along with a small group of others to "take care of" someone shrieking nonstop in No Man's Land. Instead of a wounded comrade, however, he discovers what appears to be an angel. One of the squad believes she's the Angel of Mons, referring to an incident that occurred during the Battle of Mons on August 22-23, 1914. The rest of the novel follows Bagger's attempts to keep this enigmatic creature safe.
The British declared war on Germany early in August of 1914, and the first troops from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were sent to France soon thereafter. The army was positioned at Mons, Belgium on August 22, where they engaged German forces the following day in what was Britain's first major battle of the war. The British forces were vastly outnumbered, 75,000 men and 300 guns to Germany's 150,000 men and 600 guns, but they held off the enemy for most of a day. They were eventually forced to retreat, however, and the Germans won the battle but incurred heavier losses (5,000 casualties compared with Britain's 1,600).
The British public was devastated that their first battle ended in failure, and in search of comfort, a journalist, 51-year-old Arthur Machen, wrote a story inspired by the event. He was touched by the fact that the BEF held off the enemy and endured an exhausting retreat without food or rest, and he crafted these elements into the tale he eventually penned, titled "The Bowmen." In it, a soldier calls upon St. George, who appears on a white stallion surrounded by Welsh longbowmen who then help hold off the Germans. The story was published on the front page of the London Evening News on September 29, 1914, at which point Machen expected it to be forgotten; it was, after all, just a fantasy—a work of fiction. (The full text of the story can be found here, along with the author's introduction and additional stories.)
Some, though, began to take the account literally. Machen was approached by writers for two different publications asking if "The Bowmen" was based on facts (in both cases Machen replied in the negative). A couple of months later, Father Edward Russell, a deacon of St. Alban the Martyr Church in Holborn, asked if he could publish the story in the November issue of his parish magazine, and Machen agreed. Father Russell contacted him again in February saying the account was so popular that he'd like to publish it again, only this time he asked Machen who his sources were. The journalist reiterated that it was a work of fiction, but remarkably, Father Russell refused to believe him.
The story developed a life of its own after that; tales of miraculous rescue at Mons seemed to be everywhere. Soldiers on leave reported that while they themselves didn't witness the event, they'd spoken to others who had. It was even said that German POWs had mentioned witnessing supernatural beings defending British troops. Many variations arose; in some cases the savior was St. George and his archers, but others reported a cloud of blinding light, angels (anywhere from one to hundreds), Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and even Joan of Arc.
The British population, desperate for good news, embraced the tale, happy to know that God was on their side in spite of the mounting casualties, and The Angels of Mons, as the legend became known, had a positive impact on British morale. Even today, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, many people believe the Angels of Mons were real.
Angel of Mons, Eastleigh War Memorial, courtesy of David Dixon and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons License
by Deb Olin Unferth
Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.
Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love―or any love―seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts―and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?
By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a "soul globule" and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers.
Earth 7 begins after the end of the world. Our planet has experienced a devastating wave of "depopulation" amid environmental catastrophe, and the last humans left must respond to it. Those responses vary: some choose to settle Mars; some seek to load their minds onto microchips; others try to preserve as much of Earth as they can, in the hope that some future civilization can bring it back to life. When the story begins, Dylan Stein's scientist mother, Rosemary, is laser-focused on the latter—at the cost of connecting with her own child.
Rosemary Stein removes herself and her daughter (whom she initially calls "XY," finding names to be one of many unnecessary add-ons to the human experience) to an isolated pod in the ocean, where she can focus without distraction on coming up with a new way to preserve "traces" of Earth lifeforms. This is, as you might imagine, not a great way to raise a family. As Dylan grows up, she seeks to escape their seafloor suburb by any means necessary, from cajoling her mother to catfishing a Martian with promises of groundbreaking research. After the Martian gambit fails, she's hopeless. Until one day, Rosemary hands her a one-way ticket:
"But she did get away. Not on that day but another. That's how these things work. You buck and buck, and then, with your weakest, most exhausted kick, the gate swings open. Why did it open now and not before? (Was it unlocked all along?) No matter, you escaped. It doesn't usually solve much. But you don't know that yet. All you know is that your mother changed her mind."
Both mother and daughter get the escape they want—from people, from the pod. But, like the novel only starting after it's too late to save Earth, the most exciting changes in Dylan's life happen after she achieves her goal, and her journey is laid out in the sharp, evocative style that makes Deb Olin Unferth a master of the craft. The use of "you" to bring the reader right into the story, the choice to cover a long span of years using just the handful of moments that matter most, and her endlessly fascinating, complex characters: this is Unferth's best work yet. Read it, read it again, and read it out loud.
Surfacing from the ocean, Dylan is feeling triumphant, motion sick, and totally lost. What now? She winds up taking an internship at Rosemary's old research lab in the desert, but finds working inside and with others a baffling task. Despite her desperation to connect with people while she was inside the pod, she's overwhelmed with the reality of it, and spends as much time as she can outside the compound observing the desert sand. "Earth 7 will transform the way you think about sand" might not be a great back-cover blurb, but it's true.
It may also transform the way you think about humanity. Rosemary and Dylan aren't the only characters to achieve their goals and wonder what comes next—we also meet Martian settlers who dream of returning to Earth, a death cultist with last-minute regrets, and Melanie. Melanie is a resort bartender at "Vacationland for Singles (terraform area .0469)" who has plastic skin and a bevy of health worries from a series of invasive, experimental surgeries to prevent aging. Melanie lets the resort guests assume she's a robot. "Meanwhile, Dylan knew. Of course she knew. She figured it all out on the second day. Too late, she was already in love." If you, like me, are still looking for a guidebook for being a person (did everyone else get it delivered?) you will adore the relationships in this book.
Earth 7 takes a hard look at what it means to be alive and experience the world, and asks what really matters. What survives us? The scientists racing to preserve samples of wooly mammoth DNA might have one answer for that, but Unferth provides another. Our connections to one another matter, human connections. This is a love story—not just about Dylan and Melanie, as beautiful as their story is, but about the love between child and mother, between a scientist and their subject, between Earth and life. "I am surprised by the long tether of family," a later message from Dylan's mother confesses. "There are sixty-four kinds of ownership states and different shades of each, not all of them detrimental, as I once thought… No matter how far in distance and time from you I am, the string doesn't fray or thin. It strengthens."
In a future where Earth is dead and humanity dying, Deb Olin Unferth's prose is alive, and reminds you to take stock of the planet and community we have now. True survival lies not in racing to defy nature, but in embracing what's in front of us, and truly caring for one another—no matter how hopeless it may seem, or how robotic we claim to be. Earth 7 is a novel fiercely in love with imperfect life. Read it to fall in love with yours.
Book reviewed by Margaret Belford
The title of Earth 7 raises the question, right away, of more than one Earth. "Earth 7" is not another planet, however; in the book, that name refers to a collection of Earth "traces," the preserved genetic materials of various Earth lifeforms. The people of Mars are intent on collecting these traces, so they might be able to mimic Earth-like life and conditions on their new planet. A small spoiler: their success is limited.
On our Earth, the question of settling outer space and escaping this rapidly-warming planet is hotly debated. Elon Musk's SpaceX, in the company's IPO filing, says that its mission is the "establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants" in order to create "species-level redundancy." Essentially, Earth is vulnerable, and we need a backup plan.
Climate activists have deployed the slogan "There is No Planet B" to emphasize the need for emissions reduction. This is our one Earth, one shot, they argue; settling other planets is too remote (and risky) a possibility. Astronomers for Planet Earth is a grassroots network advocating for sustainable practices in the field of astronomy, and against the idea of settling another Earth-like planet as the solution to climate change. Furthermore, the process of space exploration and settlement can itself be harmful to the environment: for example, SpaceX's launch and test site has raised concerns from local environmentalists for damaging a nearby wildlife refuge. (Not to mention that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency worked to cancel about $67.4 million in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency environmental grants in 2025, as well as removed federal workers responsible for climate monitoring and response across the EPA and NOAA, and that Twitter, now X, under Musk has become a breeding ground for climate dis- and mis-information.)
Beyond the concerns some may have around colonizing space, there is also the worry that diverting attention and resources to Mars settlement would actively take away from climate change mitigation efforts here on Earth. Developing and launching rockets takes billions of dollars (even as those costs are being reduced as the industry expands, primarily via SpaceX). Could that money be better invested in carbon storage, renewable energy, or sea walls?
Others argue that the technology to geoengineer Mars for human habitation should be used here on Earth, first, to adapt our environment to the new climate. Scientists in Earth 7 attempt this; they create a sky "full of sulfur and diamonds, shot into the air by cannons to scatter the sunlight," but it's too late for them. Is it too late for our planet, too?
Unferth's Martian residents long for memories of the pale blue dot they left behind. They got what they wanted, they escaped, but still, they think, "What a place Earth was. What a miracle. How they all wished they could go."
Astronauts in Martian dust storms, courtesy of Paul DiMare, NASA.
by Ashley Hope Pérez
Books are disappearing from shelves across the country.
What does this mean for authors, illustrators, and—most crucially—for young readers?
This bold collection of fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic narratives, essays, and other genres explores book bans through various lenses, and empowers teens to fight back. From moving personal accounts to clever comebacks aimed at censorship, fifteen legendary YA authors and illustrators confront the high-stakes question of what is lost when books are kept from teens.
In the heat of the righteous anger many of us feel when confronting a book ban, it can be easy to lose the forest for the trees. We may feel incensed that anyone would tell us what we can or cannot read—but to truly combat this growing national problem, readers must transform their anger into a useful force for social change.
This is the impetus behind the new anthology Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights. In this brilliant book, editor Ashley Hope Pérez and an impressive group of young adult authors and artists have joined forces to provide a resource for all readers, and teenagers in particular, who want to fight for their right to read.
Through a variety of forms—essays, short stories, poetry, and comics—these YA authors explore the issues around book bans and censorship (young adult fiction is the most frequently banned genre in public schools and libraries). They also discuss the hate they've personally received for their writing, and why it is more important than ever for everyone to have access to stories that expand our understanding of the world we live in.
Brendan Kiely, the co-author (with Jason Reynolds) of the frequently banned All American Boys, contributes the heartbreaking short story "O-Town Blues." The story is written in the form of a letter from Cal, a teenage boy, to the author of his favorite book, O-Town Blues, a semi-autobiographical novel set in Cal's hometown. Cal's mother has started a Moms for Liberty-esque group intent on banning it from the school library for its sexual content and the unfavorable things it has to say about the town. When his Muslim girlfriend, Maryam, wants him to stand up to his mom at a school board meeting, Cal can't find the strength to do so. Paralyzed, he can only listen while Maryam declares, "We are not asking for your permission to exist. We're demanding that our education not be stunted by your strange obsession with dehumanizing us." Kiely highlights the deep, emotional damage done not just to those teens who lose the chance to read important stories that reflect their own experiences but to those whose loved ones lead those charges.
Though all of the authors represented here have become fierce advocates for the freedom to read, their frustration at having to do so is palpable. In "Live in the World," artist and writer Trung Le Nguyen expresses in comic form how exhausting and infuriating it can be to have the same fight over and over. "Well this email sucks and I hate everything about it," he grumbles in the face of yet another ban. In the graphic essay "Getting to Know Your Hate Mail," Ashley Hope Pérez laments the effect hate mail has on her as she wades through emails calling for her arrest and even attacking her hair style: "So why do I care? Why do these words eat at me? Why can't I remember fan mail half as clearly as the slime that coats my inbox?"
Padma Venkatraman's powerful short story "Word Warriors" follows Kamala, a young, rebellious Indian woman. Full of passionate feelings but lacking direction and support from home, she finds new purpose in a caring teacher's creative writing class. However, her happiness is short-lived when her teacher is suspended at the behest of campaigning parents who are angry over the books she assigned her students. Along with her classmates, Kamala fights valiantly against the nearly overwhelming tide of hateful ignorance, winning back her teacher's job only to be confronted by terrible violence just when things are returning to normal. The story is told from Kamala's perspective after these horrific events have taken place—as she reflects on what has happened, she faces a choice: returning to a life where the voice she's found as a writer is silenced, or continuing her teacher's crusade. Kamala chooses to keep writing. "I look at my friends sitting around me, writing," she says. "Our writing circle, like all circles, has no end."
In its nonfiction essays, Banned Together critically discusses book bans from different angles. Multiple authors point out that those who move to ban books rarely actually read the material they're seeking to eliminate; another reminds the reader that book bans don't just restrict access to books, but also undermine trust in the institutions that offer them, like libraries and schools. Maia Kobabe, whose memoir Gender Queer about coming out as nonbinary has topped banned lists for years (see Beyond the Book), points out that the majority of the 1,000 book challenges filed at school districts during the 2021-2022 school year were submitted by only 11 people (one man alone filed 92 challenges)—meaning that just a handful of people are driving the national push to remove books.
Perhaps Banned Together's most important message is that despite their insistence that book bans are focused on "protecting" young people, most people who attempt to ban books come from a place of fear, ignorance, and bigotry. The main target of book bans is literature featuring LGBTQ characters and storylines; the second biggest is literature about race and racism. These are usually books that parents think are inappropriate for their children simply because they feature lives that are different than their own or stories that acknowledge painful truths about their country, their race or religion, or themselves. "Book banners are afraid of having to think for themselves, of having to speak to their children on subjects they don't know anything about," writes Isabel Quintero in her essay "The Art of The Hocicona."
Each piece in the anthology is introduced with a short biography of the author and followed by useful resources, including recommendations for further reading on the piece's topic, advocacy opportunities, and extra information, like an introduction to the "SLAPS test," an adolescent-friendly riff on the Miller Test (the legal standard for obscenity), which is frequently invoked in legal battles against book bans. There are even instructions for creating your own "Little Free Banned Library."
Banned Together is an excellent, incredible resource that entertains and teaches in equal measure. It is full of unique authorial voices that represent many different cultures and life experiences. But perhaps its greatest gift is the wonderful introduction it offers to some truly brilliant authors. My own reading list grew by leaps and bounds as I "met" each of these gifted storytellers. I highly recommend the anthology to any teen who wants to equip themselves to engage in the battle to protect our right to read. The greatest weapon we have to fight ignorance is knowledge—and this book offers it in spades.
Book reviewed by Sara Fiore
When speaking about book bans, it rarely takes long for the 2019 graphic memoir Gender Queer to enter the conversation. Its author Maia Kobabe, who is also the first contributing author to Banned Together, never imagined that writing a memoir about eir experience growing up and coming out as nonbinary and asexual would lead to national celebrity as one of the most banned authors in the country.
Kobabe, who uses Spivak pronouns (e/eir/em), was writing the book for emself as much as for the many other people in the world struggling to find their own identities. "There wasn't this language for it," Kobabe said in a 2022 New York Times interview. "I just thought, I am wanting to come out as nonbinary, and I am struggling with how to bring this up in conversation with people. And even when I am able to start a conversation about it, I feel like I am never fully able to get my point across."
It is perhaps the ultimate irony that a book that only had a 5,000-copy run found national fame and readership after its banning began. Its first run did sell out and Kobabe received two separate awards from the American Library Association, but it was a viral video of a parent railing against the book at a school board meeting in 2021 that thrust Kobabe onto the national stage.
Gender Queer would go on to be the subject of multiple lawsuits and the prime example used by hate groups like "Moms for Liberty" in their crusade to keep anything they deem objectionable off of library and bookstore shelves. PEN America and the American Library Association have listed it as the most banned and challenged book in the country for multiple years. Kobabe had been encouraged by fellow writers to try to see challenges and banning attempts as positive in a certain light. "I am trying… to take all of this as, if not a compliment, at least a kind of testament to the strength of my work," e says, and notes that there is a certain honor in finding eir book on shelves alongside authors like Maya Angelou and Harper Lee.
Kobabe has become a passionate, if somewhat exhausted, advocate for the right to read and for the need to support all stories, not just the ones people are comfortable with. "When you remove those books from the shelf or you challenge them publicly in a community, what you're saying to any young person who identified with that narrative is, 'We don't want your story here'," e told the New York Times.
In eir graphic opening to Banned Together, Kobabe balances disturbing facts about book banning, like librarian firings and restricted access to ebook platforms such as Libby, with a celebration of the readers, booksellers, and librarians who have supported em on the unexpected journey to being a leader in the battle against banning. E expresses deep gratitude to everyone who has worked to keep eir book on shelves and urges readers to express their thanks as well: "Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate," e writes. It's an excellent reminder that book banning damages many more than just the authors of the books and that everyone affected needs our support.
by Christina Baker Kline
When Eng and Chang Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they're not just a curiosity—they're a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they're looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge.
Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Adelaide sees in the twins' fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sarah, quiet and observant, isn't so sure. When the twins' lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.
Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and epic: a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.
Sarah Yates's prospects are grim. After falling pregnant out of wedlock and losing the baby, her reputation, as well as that of her sister, Adelaide, has been ruined. So when conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker—the original "Siamese twins," so named because they were originally from Siam (now Thailand)—decide to settle down in Wilkes County, North Carolina, after many lucrative years of touring as "curiosities," and scandalously declare their intent to marry, Adelaide decides to take advantage of the situation. Within a few years, Sarah and Adelaide are married to Chang and Eng, and thus begins their complicated life as two married couples who are really a party of four. As the couples navigate a life that doesn't fit within the rigid rules of mid-19th century Southern society—both because of the twins' Asian background and their physical connection—cracks begin to form.
Many books have been written about Chang and Eng, yet little is known about the two sisters who became their wives and birthed their combined 21 children. Using historical records, oral histories, and biographies, Christina Baker Kline has created a fictionalized but realistic inner life for Sarah "Sallie" Yates, the wife to Eng. Although Sarah's story is told in the first person, her narrative initially feels distant; she's indecisive, hesitant, and quiet, and she feels like a weak character who passively allows others—mainly Adelaide—to push her into major life decisions, including marriage. Although the physical complexities of her marriage initially scare Sarah and she remains at arm's length from her husband, Eng's gentleness and attentiveness eventually allow Sarah to fall in love with him, and this romance changes the tone of the story and the dynamic of the relationship between the foursome.
Despite the sensational nature of Sarah and Eng's marriage, the story is strongest when it focuses on little day-to-day moments. There are many scenes of Sarah and Adelaide reading and doing needlework, details of Chang and Eng's work on their farm, and accounts of the daily tasks performed by the enslaved people there. When the sisters become pregnant at the same time, they find a sense of camaraderie, seeing themselves "for the first time…reflected in each other—not in rivalry, but in kinship" and soaking up "the steady companionship of waiting." Once children start being born, there are many relatable moments of early motherhood: "The sound of crying seems stitched into the air…sometimes I wondered if Addie and I might both simply fall asleep on our feet, rocking our babies until dawn." Other aspects of their living arrangement are less relatable, but no less interesting, such as the negotiation of physical space among "four strong personalities" (including, at first, sharing one oversized bed) and the difficulties of intra-marriage communication—Sarah laments that "there was no space for the kind of talk other husbands and wives take for granted, for idle observation and whispered truths that deepen trust in a marriage."
For several years, both families live in one house, but eventually a second home is built some distance away, and Chang and Eng take alternating three-day stays with each wife and family at the different homes. For Sarah, this new arrangement inspires reflection on a person's loyalty to blood versus the bonds of marriage; when one of Sarah and Eng's children is killed in a terrible accident, Eng refuses to even ask his brother to forego the three day stay rule to stay and bury his daughter. "I hate that despite my pleading, my sobbing, my grief, he would choose his brother over me," Sarah says.
Her relationship with Eng is further tested once Sarah begins to truly consider the nature of slavery. Sarah grew up in a slaveholding household, and she took at least one slave with her into her married life. Chang and Eng paid for additional enslaved people over the years, finally numbering as many as 18 (most under the age of 7) just before the onset of the Civil War—this despite being essentially treated as slaves when they were first brought from Siam to the United States. Sarah gradually undergoes a moral awakening around slavery, especially after she uncovers one of her husband's biggest secrets.
The Foursome is a slower-paced, character-driven novel that explores the complexities of marriage inside a relationship that was incredibly complicated for the fact that it involved not just two but four people. Kline's fictional depiction of Sarah is both unique and layered—she's an everyday, relatable woman who undergoes significant character development and moral education. A unique and fascinating work of historical fiction, Kline's latest novel will appeal to fans of family drama and historical fiction.
Book reviewed by Jordan Lynch
Christina Baker Kilne's latest novel, The Foursome, is a fictionalized version of the story of Sarah Yates, one of two sisters who married one of the original "Siamese twins," Chang and Eng Bunker. As the wife of a conjoined twin, Sarah must navigate not only the emotional complexities of her marriage but also the complications of a physical relationship with a husband who is physically attached to another.
The Mayo Clinic defines conjoined twins as "two babies who are born physically connected to each other." If the babies were born separate, they would be identical twins, but because of developmental complications, the babies remain connected, most often at the chest, abdomen, or pelvis. There are currently two theories regarding the cause of conjoined twins; one theory suggests that an embryo splits late in development (13-15 days post conception instead of 8-12 days), and thus separation stops before the process is complete. The second theory suggests that two separate but identical embryos somehow fuse back together during early development, creating a physical connection. The cause of either event remains unknown, and because of the rare incidence of conjoined twins—one in every 50,000 to 60,000 births—scientists have been unable to determine any genetic or environmental causes that would make conjoined twins more likely.
Historically, conjoined twins were often stillborn or died shortly after birth. Today, while many conjoined twins are still stillborn, early detection in pregnancy via ultrasound, advanced surgery techniques, and multidisciplinary care has somewhat increased twins' survival rates. Chances of survival increase up to an average of 60% with surgical separation, which may be possible depending on where the twins are connected and whether or not vital organs are shared. If a heart or a brain is shared, surgical separation is not usually possible, but most conjoined twins are joined somewhere around the chest or upper abdomen (known as thoracopagus and omphalopagus twins) and are mostly eligible for separation surgery. Separation surgery is performed as early as possible, typically within a year of birth.
Despite the benefits of separation, there are ethical quandaries around the surgery, particularly if one twin would be unable to survive on their own. Such an ethical dilemma arose in England at the start of the millennium. In 2000, conjoined twins Gracie and Rosie Attard were born in Manchester, England. The two girls shared an aorta, a bladder, and circulatory systems; furthermore, Rosie had only a premature brain and no functioning heart or lungs, thus relying on Gracie's body to survive. Doctors gave the pair a life expectancy of six months unless they were surgically separated. However, separation would certainly kill Rosie, and thus arose the question: should the girls be separated to save Gracie's life at the cost of her sister? The girls' parents refused the separation due to religious beliefs, but the hospital took the case to court, where it eventually made it to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. There, the three justices ultimately ruled that the girls should be separated, stating that the surgeons' intentions were to save Gracie's life and that the surgery was necessary to avoid causing her inevitable and irreparable harm. The 20-hour surgery took place when the girls were three months; Rosie passed away after the surgery, as doctors expected, and Gracie was able to thrive on her own.
Chang and Eng Bunker, who are fictionalized in The Foursome, were the first widely known conjoined twins. (Indeed, the term "Siamese twins" originates with them; as they were from Siam, now Thailand.) They were connected at the lower part of the sternum by a 4–5-inch band of flesh and shared connected livers. Today, it's likely that Chang and Eng could have been safely separated, especially due to their minimal connection. However, in the mid-1800s, the twins were advised not to separate at the risk of death via blood loss, and thus lived together their entire lives.
A portrait of Chang and Eng Bunker
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